Three SoKor firms caught buying coal,iron from NK

SEOUL — Three South Korean firms were caught importing coal and iron from the North last year, Seoul’s customs office said Friday, in an apparent violation of UN sanctions imposed in August 2017 on the nuclear-armed state.

More than 35,000 tons of North Korean coal and iron were imported into the South via Russia between April and October last year, the Korea Customs Service said, warning that “any ships that are believed to have violated UN sanctions will be impounded or banned from entering South Korean ports.”

The coal shipments were first sent to Russia, where their details were disguised using forged “country of origin” documents, and then reloaded on ships bound for the South, the customs office said in a statement that followed a 10-month investigation by the authorities.

“Korea Customs Service has confirmed seven criminal offenses and it will report three persons and three companies to prosecution authorities with a request to indict them”, it said.

News of the apparent breach comes after a UN report last week accused the North of evading sanctions by continuing to export coal, iron and other commodities as well as carrying out illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil products at sea.

Deliveries of iron and steel to China, India and other countries generated nearly $14 million from October to March, the report said.

Last year the UN Security Council adopted a series of resolutions to ban North Korean exports of commodities in a bid to cut off revenue to the isolated regime’s weapons programs.

A recent diplomatic thaw culminated in a historic meeting between the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.